South Africa on Monday filed fresh evidence to the top UN court to bolster its charges that Israel is committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
The memorial, as it is known in legal language, includes new evidence that Israel has “violated the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president.
The evidence shows Israel’s actions are aimed at the physical destruction of Palestinians as well as “ignoring and defying” several provisional measures earlier ordered by The International Court of Justice.
Israel is “using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel’s aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians,” he said, referring to the evidence detailed in over 750 pages of text, supported by exhibits and annexes of over 4,000 pages.
Lebanon destruction
The cache of new evidence may not be made public, he said.
Ramaphosa said the filing of the evidence takes place just as Israel is intensifying the killing of civilians in Gaza and “now seems intent to follow a similar path of destruction in Lebanon.”
The respondent, Israel, is due to file a response to the new evidence by July 28 of next year.
South Africa filed the genocide case against Israel at The Hague-based tribunal in late 2023, accusing Israel, which has relentlessly bombed Gaza since last October, of failing to uphold its commitments under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Devastation and suffering
Several countries, including Türkiye, Nicaragua, Palestine, Spain, Mexico, Libya, and Colombia, have joined the case at the ICJ, which began public hearings in January.
The top court in May ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. It was the third time the 15-judge panel issued preliminary orders seeking an end to deaths and destruction in the blockaded enclave, where nearly 43,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed since October 7, 2023, as well as over 100,000 wounded.
“The evidence will show that undergirding Israel’s genocidal acts is the special intent to commit genocide, a failure by Israel to prevent incitement to genocide, to prevent genocide itself and its failure to punish those inciting and committing acts of genocide,” said Ramaphosa, urging the global community to stop the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza.
“The devastation and suffering has been possible only because despite the ICJ and numerous UN bodies’ actions and interventions, Israel has failed to comply with its international obligations,” he added.
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